Hillary Clinton might go down in US history as the Great Unifier. She has brought under her banner an astonishingly broad alliance of America’s elites, including journalists, academics, Wall Street greedmongers, neocon warmongers, Leftist reformers, and many billionaires. It’s the bipartisanship so long advocated on op-ed pages and in convention speeches.

After-election analysis asks if the President-elect has a mandate from the people. The election that counts has already happened. Clinton has the mandate that matters in America: from our ruling elites. Obama’s ambitions were sated as the first African-American President and historic passage of ObamaCare. I suspect (guess) that Clinton has more appetite and bigger dreams. The powers of the Executive have expanded since Nixon, the last President who boldly used them.

This will be a surprise to most Americans after mocking the candidates for 18 months during Circus 2016, amused by endless discussion of personalities and sound bites and trivia. We enjoyed ourselves. Our clicks and mega-hours before screens boost corporate media’s profits. On January 21 reality will return, with a vengeance.

Progress: not today but in the future…

Political polarization is the great tool of the 1%. The ease with which they keep us divided shows their fitness to rule and our fitness as proles. Neither progressives nor populists have the power to rule by themselves. Yet it has not been so in the past, when we came together to reform America in the New Deal.

November 7 might mark the nadir for the reform movements in America, with the defeat of Sanders by the Democratic Party establishment and the probable defeat of Trump in November. They hate each other, but in the ashes of defeat they might realize they have some common views. Molly Ball in The Atlantic explained “What Trump and Sanders Have in Common” – – “Probably more than you think.” Others have also seen this, such as Erik Loomis (asst prof of history at U RI) at Lawyer, Guns, and Money talking about “Trade, Trump, and the Debate” — excerpt…

“But let’s not kid ourselves, Trump absolutely crushed her on trade in the early part of the debate. I found it highly disturbing to realize that if I didn’t know that Trump didn’t actually care about this issue and certainly doesn’t care about the workers of the world, I would find myself agreeing with him. NAFTA is indeed the worst trade deal in history. It was a complete disaster for the working class of the United States and it was a complete disaster for the working class of Mexico. Trump also did a great job of connecting recent issues of capital mobility to his statements.”

But defeat followed by four (or eight) years of Hillary might broaden their vision. Or they can let our elites continue to gain power, allow inequality to increase, and watch our futile foreign wars burn on — and we will just accept whatever our elites choose to give us. Should they decide to ally, there are scores of ways to politically organize for 2020 and retake America. November 9 is the ideal time to begin.

8 thoughts on “2016: a historic unification election for America!”

“But defeat followed by four (or eight) years of Hillary might broaden their vision. Or they can let our elites continue to gain power, allow inequality to increase, and watch our futile foreign wars burn on — and we will just accept whatever our elites choose to give us. Should they decide to ally, there are scores of ways to politically organize for 2020 and retake America. November 9 is the ideal time to begin”

There are a couple of problems.
The first is that there might not be four years. Clinton & Co might well blunder their way into a war with Russia.
The second is that the progressives, or their chanpions at any rate, are fine with status quo. Musing about trasgender bathrooms on Salon makes for a much more pleasant life than one Assange is living.

The possibility of war with Russia is wonderful fodder for clickbait headlines (our geopolitical experts solemnly warn of war every month or so), it’s unlikely. The US and Russia have long experience with these brushfires on the frontiers. Neither one wants war over god-forsaken Syria. Neither has any serious stakes in Syria.

Obama will not start WW3 in the last week of his presidency. His pattern of choices, bad but not suicidal, is quite clear.
The Clinton gang seem to feature a lot of people who think that history ended in 1989 and they inherited the earth in perpetuity. They might delude themselves into dangerous miscalculation.